Running quickly through the field, Chayse dared a quick look over her shoulder and gratefully saw nobody. Turning back, she dove quickly underneath a large log. Her favorite hiding place. Nobody could find her here. Not even him; and he had a nose like a bloodhound when it came to anywhere she went.

Having hid here many a time as a child, the hole had always felt comfortable to her. Now, at twenty-five-years old it was a bit small but she managed to curl herself up inside. No matter how tightly she held herself, a piece of her would stick out. The toe of her shoes, an elbow, a nose. When she pulled in one, another stuck out.

Leaning her cheek on her hands, she blinked softly as she thought about the last fourteen months. Meeting Jeffers had been a fluke, an accident from fate on Friday the Thirteenth. Late for a meeting with her boss, she had run around the corner of the crowded office building and slammed right into Jeffers Halloway, CEO of Connet Holdings, knocking him backward wherein his coffee went flying, his briefcase fell to the ground and she landed right on top of him, kneeing him in the groin.

It had been the perfect start to what she considered an imperfectly perfect relationship. After making sure she was okay, he demanded she come up to his office before leaving that day. She was sure she would be fired; instead, he asked her to dinner that night. Or more to the point, he told her he was taking her to dinner. For the last fourteen months, they had been through their share of fights, laughter, control, two break-ups and finally an agreement to settle everything the old-fashioned way. A good hard spanking.

Jeffers was of the opinion that Chayse was hard-headed and acted without thinking. She knew he was right but acting without thinking was just part of who she was. Now that he could paddle her backside whenever she did something stupid, he seemed a little more easy-going about it. Well, not about the spankings. He had a hard swing and had progressed from his hand, which was hard enough, to a leather paddle to a wooden paddle. That damned thing hurt. After her last stunt, he promised her that the next one would be with a cane.

She never admitted it to him, but she always felt better after one of his disciplinary spankings. It was hell when he tenderized her ass, but afterwards, there was a feeling of being new with no mistakes in his eyes. The addition of his arms which would pull her close and his soft, smooth voice telling her how much she meant to him would make everything okay.

But that wasn’t going to happen today.

Pissed off. That was what she was. Today was an anniversary. Maybe not a normal one. Fourteen months might seem strange, but it wasn’t the timing so much as the day. It was Friday the Thirteenth. It should have meant something. A calmer, more logical part of her brain pointed out that Jeffers insisting that the two of them come to her parents’ house this week should mean something as he actually wanted to meet her family. But she pushed that way. They should be celebrating their anniversary in style with a good, hard shag.

Unfortunately, Jeffers was of a different opinion. “Chayse, I will not fuck you in your parents’ house.” What did that have to do with anything? Her sister and her husband did the deed when they came to visit, so why couldn’t the two of them?

And it wasn’t just sex that was the issue. In the four days they had been there so far, he had not laid a hand on her sexually, disciplinary, or otherwise, except to take her hand in his. It was wearing on her. So much that when he told her to go up to her room so he could talk to her father, she slipped out the back when he wasn’t looking and took off to her favorite spot to pout. Here she could do all her thinking without anyone finding her.

“Chayse!” Jeffers voice made her frown. Yes, try to find me. As if you really want to. Her inner logic said that was a childish thought and she mentally stuck her tongue out at it.

“Answer me, Chayse!” His voice had turned to the firm one that always made her skin tingle and her thighs rub against one another in anticipation. It also made that inner voice ramp up its chant of run you fool! “Chayse! You have until the count of three and unless you are hurt you won’t be able to sit down tonight…One.” A thrill and slight sense of dread rushed up her spine as he began to count. “Two.” The little voice in her head, the one who thought she was being totally crazy and wanted to protect her backside at all costs screamed for her to leave her hiding place. She stayed put. Nobody had ever found her there and he would not either. “Three.”

His boots whooshed along the tall grasses as he came closer and closer to her. Her heart beat so loudly it almost drowned out the sounds as his feet brought him unfailingly in the direction of her location. The birds stopped chirping, the cicadas stopped their shrill sounds; the only two things she heard were the blood rushing past her ears and the crunch as his feet stepped on the low brush.

Unconsciously, as memories of what it felt like to have his hand come on contact with her behind filled her head, she pulled back her shoe from sight hoping nothing else stuck out. When he stopped right next to the tree and she stared at his boots, she realized she was panting as though having run a ten mile race. “Chayse?” he said in a cool, firm voice. “Come out now.”

He found her? How did he do that? It wasn’t fair. Nobody should be able to do that. Didn’t she deserve a little privacy to pout?

Squirming, she slowly maneuvered out from under the tree, keeping her eyes on his boots as she stood up. At first he said nothing else, as though waiting for an explanation she was not prepared to give. When she began to weave back and forth slightly, a soft sigh came from him, one that meant he was disappointed which always made her fidget. “Why did you run?”

Peeking up at him through her lashes, she saw an expression on his face, one she was very familiar with. “I didn’t run,” she said defiantly, knowing that would not help but unable to stop herself.

Sitting down on the large log, he raised an eyebrow. “And you were out here hiding under the tree for fun?”

The humor of his question combined with the raised eyebrow made the corners of her lips quirk in response. “I used to hide out here as a kid.”

“I see. And you thought you should be out here hiding because…?”

Damn him. Why did he think this was the time to force her to admit to stuff she would rather not talk about? “That’s my business.” She crossed her arms and stood up as tall as her five foot three frame would take her and glared at him. With him sitting down, that should have put her in the dominant position. Only…it did not. Instead, it made her feel like a petulant child. Which you are kind of being that dratted inner voice reminded her.

Not a sound left his lips. All he did was straighten up, placing his feet firmly on the ground. It was a stance she knew all too well. It clearly said, Over my knees, now. Her lips opened as her brain went into overdrive, trying to find a way out of the mess that she had created; but her body had other ideas and almost as if she was watching, unable to stop it, she unbuttoned and dropped her shorts and panties and slid her body across his legs. A squeak left her lips as he grasped her hips and pulled her further up so that once settled, her buttocks were high in the air, her feet nor her hands nowhere near the ground.

Jeffers never waited, nor gave her time to prepare. Instead, his hard hand came down in over a dozen sharp swats, covering her globes with a soft, stinging heat. “You would think,” he said in the conversational tone he used when he wanted her to really think about what he was saying, “that you would trust me by now.” Stronger, with more intense focus, his large hand came down again, covering her thighs until they stung like mad.

“I’m sorry!” she wheedled, hoping that would make him stop. And yet a part of her, no matter how painful the process was, was rejoicing that he was at least doing something.

“You agreed,” he said as he paused in his swinging, “to trust me, to come to me when you feel an extreme need to do something stupid. Didn’t you?”

“I—“ Her words left and all that came out was a whoosh of air as his hands left her body and she heard and felt the unmistakable removing of his belt. Oh. Shit. That isn’t good.

“The thing that bothers me,” he went on, only pausing every once in a while to administer a dozen or so very hard thwacks to her blistered flesh. “Is we just talked about this. You took a look at that cane and promised me not to do this again. Why did you run?”

A dozen more blows fell, all centered on her left cheek and all sense of decorum or conscious thought left her. As a wail left her lips and tears spattered her cheeks and the ground, he switched to her right cheek, the leather covering the surface as she writhed on his lap. His hand grasped her waist so she could not move and trapped between his hand and his abdomen with his belt raining down upon her posterior and thighs, the words slipped out of their own accord.

“It’s our anniversary! And you never even noticed.” Huge gulping sobs left her throat even as she had to wipe her nose on her wrist before that became a problem too. “Today is Friday the Thirteenth? Did you know that? Do you remember that we met on Friday the Thirteenth fourteen months ago?”

His body shook and at first she was confused until she realized he was laughing. “You think this is funny?” she asked angrily, twisting her head around to get a look at his face. The bastard was smiling.

“You mean when you ran me down?”

“This isn’t funny, Jeffers!” Why couldn’t men understand how important anniversaries were? It made her feel as though he really did not care at all.

The smile left his face and his eyes softened. “Honey, how many spankings have I given you?”

The question was so odd; it threw her thoughts off track. Was she supposed to be counting? She had read books where heroines had to do that, but Jeffers had never asked her to before. “No?”

“Then let me explain. I warmed you up with thirteen swats. Then, I turned to thirteen harder ones. Then thirteen more. And another thirteen. And thirteen on your left cheek and thirteen on your right. Thirteen on your thighs twice. With the belt, I did thirteen on your buttocks as a whole twice, thirteen on your left cheek, then the same on your right. Thirteen on your thighs just now. That, my dear girl, is thirteen sets of thirteen. But I believe today is actually our fourteen-month anniversary, so there is one more set left to go.”

Her tears stopped and her eyes widened as she looked up into his loving, kind eyes. “You remembered,” she whispered and even though her entire backside felt worse than any sunburn she had ever received, it somehow felt like the best anniversary gift ever. And how crazy was that?

“Of course I did. How could I forget that day when you ran into me and knocked me down, stealing my heart you dear, lovely, frustrating girl?” Shaking his head, he leaned down and kissed her roughly, pulling her hair to force her head back and holding her head firm as he plundered her mouth with his tongue. When he pulled back, she was panting again, but this time for a really good reason. She wanted him. Now. “So, let’s finish with this and move on to your gift.” The word gift caught her attention, but before she could ask what it was, he raised his arm back and his belt fell right on her sit spot.

A yell with no sound at all left her open mouth as her back arched, the pain causing three distinct reactions: desire to never get another spanking, joy that he cared enough to remember their anniversary, and pleasure as her core tightened and liquid dripped from her sopping pussy.

All thirteen strikes fell on the same spot, each one ramping up her desire and need to a point where she could not tell pain from pleasure. Her abdomen clenched even as he hit her with that thirteenth strike and she rocked into the hardest orgasm she ever had. Screaming at the top of her lungs, she rocked to and fro on his legs as he grasped hold of her. It felt as though the painful pleasure went on forever. When it began to dim and she became aware of her surroundings again, she was seated on his lap with his arms held tightly around her and his chin on top of her head.

“I love you,” he said quietly.

Even as tired as she was from the spanking and the intense orgasm, she beamed at the words. She could not imagine any time in the future where those three words would never fail to rock her world. “I love you, too.”

“Then trust me to make you happy.”

“I do. I just get stupid sometimes,” she admitted, happy knowing that she could say things like that to him and he would accept them without judgment.

“Mmm,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “So, while we are here, I wanted to say something. The last fourteen months with you have made me feel more alive than the entire rest of my thirty-seven years. I love you.”

“Even when I do something like this?”

“My love is not dependent on you being a Stepford wife. I do not want one. For one thing,” he continued in an amused voice, “if you were always good, I would get out of spanking practice.” Spluttering out a laugh, she slapped him in the chest before curling further into his arms. “And since you are now in a listening mood, I want to tell you why I wished to speak to your father.”

“Yeah,” she said with a yawn, warm and comfortable in his arms while still incredibly aware that her ass burned like acid. In this moment, that feeling was the best thing in the world. “I wondered why you were having a men’s only meeting.”

He placed his belt on her lap and she stared at the offensive, wonderful implement—something that would always be both good and bad to her— and dug something out of his pocket. “This is why.” He placed a small burgundy box in the palm of her right hand and opened up the top. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Chayse Alexander. Will you marry me?” He paused and added, “And no. I will not ask you thirteen times.”

A rush of joy flowed through her as she looked at the beautiful gold ring with a large emerald staring at her. He had even remembered how she hated diamonds. Holding the box firmly, she turned and wrapped her arms around him. As she gave her answer, she kissed him after each word. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”